Dear Erik,

Whether colleagues talk back to you and tell you what’s on their mind is influenced largely by the culture you are working in and by your own attitude towards them and your acceptance of feedback. My colleagues in Romania, for example, do not like to tell me what they consider to be ‘bad’ news. If there are things they think I might not like or even be angry about, they avoid the subject. I never take my colleagues to task about errors. I never ‘punish’ somebody for a mistake, but rather I see them as an opportunity to learn from. However, discussing an error is already seen by some colleagues as a kind of punishment. They hide and forget rather than to do something constructive about it. A mistake is not bad. It is very valuable if you can learn from it.

(more…)

Hi Gerard,

You seem to be in love with that new super businesswoman! No really, I know that this is not so and that you’re happily married and are currently with your wife hiking in the Dolomites. I personally think that your relationship must be strong to survive these climbing adventures in the mountains. You have also raised together two children with much love and that actually brings me to the point I would like to touch upon. What is the impact of your family life on your work as an entrepreneur? After all, as an entrepreneur you are in the eyes of others the most powerful man in the company. Even though you see yourself and your own role as less important. But in the eyes of others, you lead and guide them. And it is a known fact that many people do not dare to criticize the hand that feeds them. Plus there are plenty of examples around us of what power can do to people. (more…)

Dear Erik,

A few months ago, I ran into a next generation entrepreneur. Someone who already fully incorporates ‘new sales’ in all areas (see columns 102 and 104). She’s called Ioana, and until recently she was the youngest Senior Brand Manager ever at a large FMCG multinational, responsible for a product range in three countries. While working at a busy job, she developed a cosmetics collection in the evenings, which she sells internationally via the internet with excellent customer service. (more…)

Gerard,

You listed some key reasons that drove you to become an entrepreneur. That’s how you were raised. But it fails to explain why some people choose the path of entrepreneurship and others don’t. You summarise the advantages of being an entrepreneur, but that’s all in the eye of the beholder. Someone else might see those same reasons as disadvantages. (more…)

Hi Erik,

My father owned a shoe business and a shop, he taught me from a young age that I should start my own company. He believed that if you were skilled and worked as an employee, you were only making more money for the boss, not for yourself. And it was true at his time that an employee had little chance to make good money. (more…)

Hi Gerard,

I read you remembered that I worked for three months as a retail stockbroker. Just like in the movie Wall Street, making equity sales to individuals. I thought it was terrible. We didn’t ask people what they wanted, we just pushed equities on them we wanted to sell. It was a sign of the times. Stocks rose and people were just greedy. You were stupid if you did nothing in equities. In this period, in the late eighties, everybody was bragging with each other that their holiday was paid for by a ride on the stock market. And many equity brokers surfed on this trend and it was all fueled by the greed of private investors. (more…)